> Google and Apple need to get their act together though, and just provide a contact tracing framework as part of the OS that is compatible, and can have data housed in each country where they see fit. It should be optional for people, but it should be part of the OS, and it should just be presented to the countries as ready to go with just a little bit of integration. That way we can force everyone to respect user privacy and not do sketchy contact tracing apps.

I think that's a terrible idea. Think about how somebody can mark themselves as being infected. Normally you'd want this to be authorized by a doctor or similar, or maybe just by reporting symptoms if the situation is dire.

Google and Apple rightfully did not want to be involved with these decisions, they just want to provide a way to detect contacts via bluetooth while still mandating preservation of their users privacy.